


I can handle that!

by TwirlsWrites



Series: Force Myself to Write [5]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Could Be Canon, M/M, cameo appearances - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-01 23:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6540817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwirlsWrites/pseuds/TwirlsWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cisco plays tour guide for a day that happens to be Barry Allen's birthday a month or two before the Particle Accelerator goes live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I can handle that!

            “Sorry Bar, I guess this is officially the worst birthday present ever,” Iris told him. Barry shrugged.

            “It’s okay, it happens.”

            “Isn’t there anything you can do?” Joe asked. “We called last week.”

            “I’m really sorry sir, but we’re short on tour guides today.”

            “Good morning Miss Julia, we had an extra doughnut in the break room and I thought — oh!” Sorry, I didn’t realize you were with visitors. Hello,” the man said this all in a rush, setting down a bright pink pastry box and giving them all a bright smile.

            “Hello,” Barry greeted automatically. The man surveyed the trio.

            “What’s with the frowns?”

            “The Wests had a tour scheduled for today - but Trent, Jennifer, and Rhonda are all out sick today.” Julia informed him with a small frown.

            “Oh. And there’s those middle schoolers in the auditorium,” he mused.

            “Exactly.”

            “I can take them,” The man said. Julia frowned.

            “Cisco you’re not a tour guide,” she pointed out.

            “Well no, but I can show them around - look at the sad faces!” he insisted. “Just sign them in as my guests. It’ll be cool.” Julia hesitated, but only for a second.

            “… Alright. Here you go, folks - enjoy,” she said. She handed each of them a lanyard with a smile, “Don’t let him get you into too much trouble.”

            “Ooh — I’m wounded Ms. Julia, truly wounded,” he told her with a frown. She just smiled an indulgent smile at him, and he winked before spinning back to Joe, Iris, and Barry. “Hello, I’m Cisco Ramon and I work here - welcome to STAR Labs!”

            “I’m Iris, this is my Dad Joe, and Barry - it’s his birthday,” Iris introduced.

            “Happy Birthday!” Cisco enthused. “Hopefully we’ll find something that explodes for you!”

            “Cisco!” Julia scolded.

            “Kidding!” he assured her before motioning for the family to follow him.

            “Al~right So this is the atrium of STAR Labs. It’s… big, and there’s lots of fountains an windows.” Cisco started. “Now, there’s all sorts of informational junk upstairs but that’s boring, so I’m gonna take you behind the scenes.” Cisco told them, voice dropping to a conspiring whisper.

            “Are you sure that’s alright?” Barry asked, glancing around.

            “Totally!” Cisco assured him. “Way more science back here anyway for your birthday - you like science?”

            “Uh, I’m a CI For the police,” Barry told him.

            “You’re a professional too then, huh?” Cisco asked with a wink. “Very cool. I’m a mechanical engineer. Here at STAR Labs we always have about a billion projects going on.”

            “Like the Particle Accelerator?” Barry asked. Cisco snapped and pointed at him.

            “Exactly!” He said, walking backwards down the hallway. “Here are… well, these are the bathrooms and that’s the break room. Dr. Wells has an office way in the back but this is the one he uses for official visitors - oh! Here are some of our biochemists! They’re working on some stuff I’m not allowed to talk about, but last month they released a new strain of vaccine for zoo animals that’s already saved 3 gorillas,” Cisco said.

            “Cisco?” One of the women in the lab looked up as they passed. “What are you doing?”

            “Ah - here you’ll see Dr. Caitlin Snow, a master biochemist, and her fiancé Ronnie Raymond who’s an engineer like me but spends an alarming amount of time here instead.”

            “Hi Cisco,” Ronnie said with a smile. He glanced at the guests and then back at Cisco, “… what _are_ you doing?”

            “Giving a tour to these fine folks!” Cisco said, gesturing with a wave of his arms to Barry, Iris, and Joe.

            “Oh good, the demotion you deserve,” a voice said. “And how lucky - I came over here for one slacker and found two.”

            “And to your left,” Cisco said in a dramatic voice, “You’ll see Hartley Rathaway - head of the engineering division. Don’t let his grouchy demeanor and vibrant frown fool you - he’s a lover, not a fighter.”

            “Get back to work Ramon,” Hartley sighed. “For whatever reason, Dr. Wells does pay you to engineer - not to run your mouth.”

            “Hartley - you and I both know that if you did track down Dr. Wells and complain, he would be fine with me giving a tour and say something in Latin that would make you grumble but let it go. So - to save us all time - how about we just pretend we already did all that, and you and we go our separate ways?” Cisco reeled off.

            “Fine,” Hartley grunted, crossing his arms. “But I want a full report on that stress test done and on my desk in an hour.” and then the main turned and stalked off.

            “He’s normally slightly less of a jerk,” Ronnie assured the startled Wests. “The closer we get to the Particle Accelerator launch, the more high-strung he gets.”

            “Sweetie, you may be giving him too much credit,” Caitlin said with a fond look.

            “If we’re taking away your time, we can go,” Barry said. “This was already so awesome - I don’t want you to get in trouble.” Cisco shook his head and smiled - a very, very distracting smile.

            “Dude really,” he said. “It’s cool. Besides, that report he just asked for has been on his desk for like half an hour now.” He added with a quick wink before spinning back around with a wave to Ronnie and Caitlin.

            “O-okay,” Barry managed to stutter out. Iris elbowed him, and when he turned to look she was smirking.

            “Letsee… most of this up here is pretty top secret,” Cisco was mostly talking to himself as he lead them into a winding hallway with a view of the public area down below.

            “How many people work here?” Iris asked, gazing at the wide expanse of windows that made up the atrium ceiling.

            “That is an excellent question!” Cisco said cheerily as the hallway twisted back into the heart of the building. “A lot. Yeah, there’s always someone knew coming in or out - not to mention visiting scientists, clients, government officials — I think at full capacity STAR Labs could be considered like the 12th largest city in the state.”

            “Woah,” Joe said. The new hallway had a lot of windows peeking in to different labs.

            “Yeah - and I mean, that’s accounting for everyone from Wells to Miss Julia, to Francis work works in the caf,” Cisco said. “Oh! Here’s one person who would be up to talking.” He lead them to a door and knocked.

            A woman opened the door, her hair was green and curly, her face distracted, she had large charred pair of gloves on, and salsa music came blasting into the hallway as soon as the door opened.

            “What is it Cisco?”

            “I’m giving a tour!” Cisco told her brightly. “And Salsa music?” he added something in Spanish and she laughed.

            “Shut up Cisco, it helps me focus.” she said.

            “You’d give me crap if I listened to Samba,” Cisco said. Bea rolled her eyes and turned to Barry, Iris, and Joe.

            “Hi, I’m Bea Da Costa.”

            “Bea is developing a flamethrower,” Cisco said. Looking into the room, Barry noticed a few bursts of black soot on the walls.

            “I’m not making a flamethrower,” Bea said, tone implying she said that often. “I’m working on a flame-based propulsion system.”

            “Flamethrower,” Cisco whispered.

            “ _Cara_ , if I wanted to build a flamethrower it would be built.”

            “Fair enough,” Cisco said. “We’ll leave you to your plasma. I just wanted to show them some real science.” at his prompting look Bea sighed.

            "Okay. but take a step back," she said, flipping off her stereo. She pulled her goggles down over her eyes and took a step forward to press a button on her table - a burst of flame went shooting up for a second before dying back down.

            "Awesome!" Barry exclaimed. Bea grinned and Cisco laughed.

            “I'm glad, I really do enjoy doing that. Thanks for stopping in,” Bea said. She turned back to the visitors. “And it was nice to meet you..."

            “Joe West,” Joe said.

            “Iris West,”

            “Barry Allen.”

            “Well, nice to meet you all three,” Bea said with what may or may not have been a wink at Iris.

            “You too,” Iris replied.

            “You seen Hartley yet?” Bea added to Cisco, “ _ele vai ser louco_.”

            “Already ran into him, but thanks for the heads up,” he replied, leading the way back into the hall.

            “That sound-proofing is really impressive,” Barry couldn’t help but comment. Cisco beamed at him.

            “Thanks! My design actually,” he said as Barry lost his train of thought for a second. “This section is mostly dedicated to work on the Accelerator, so even I know I can’t let you in,” he said. “But! My lab is just over here.”

            “Cool mural,” Barry commented as they walked by.

            “Yeah, it’s my favorite too - ‘swhy I chose this lab even though it’s a bit of a walk.”

            It was a spiral galaxy mural - bursts of color behind a random smattering of stars.” “And here’s my lab,” Cisco said, thumbing through his pockets for the key.

            The first thing Barry noticed was the door. Aside from the ‘Francisco Ramon’ nameplate, there was a worn piece of paper taped to it that read ‘this place is so dope’. There was also an orange post-it that looked far more recent.

            “Uh- Cisco?” Barry tried. Cisco looked up, key in hand. “I think someone was looking for you.”

            “Huh,” Cisco grabbed the post-it. “Sho-oot.”

            “What?” Iris asked.

            “One of the investors is stopping in for an update on the — on a project I’m working on and they moved up their appointment to half an hour from now.”

            “That’s cool,” Barry offered. “This was a really great tour.”

            “Well, I can at least walk you back to the front,” Cisco said. Slipping the post-it in his pocket, he started walking again. “So what else do you have planned for your birthday bash?”

           “Just meeting up with some people later for drinks,” Iris said.

            “Drinks?” Barry clarified. Iris shot him a look.

            “You should join us,” she added. “We’ll probably be at Bart’s around 8.”

            Bart’s was Barry’s favorite pub, thanks to the name and the fact that he had gone there for his 21st birthday and it was only stop he remembered from that night.

            “I’ve never been, maybe I’ll stop by,” Cisco said with a smile. They were back at the front.

            “Uh great,” Barry said.

           

            (unbeknownst to the group at the front - Hartley Rathaway was currently walking through the Particle Accelerator following up on some suspicions. His subsequent firing would keep Cisco at the lab for days straight.)


End file.
